Mistake
by CrystalMaiden77
Summary: After causing him to go missing, Sonic discovers that there's more to Metal Sonic than he thought.


" Ahhh! " Tails shouted in pain before holding his foot, having stubbed his toe on the door while trying to leave his workshop. " I should've looked where I was going… " he said sadly, embarrassed that he had been so deep in thought about his inventing that he had failed to pay attention to his surroundings.

Just outside of Tails' workshop was Sonic, who said in a panic, " Tails?! " after hearing Tails yell out in pain from stubbing his toe. He ran down the wooden stairs leading from the train to the winter snow covering the Mystic Ruins in a blue blur, and gasped at spotting Metal Sonic standing near the lake with the waterfall with his arms crossed in deep thought. Immediately jumping to conclusions, Sonic ran up to him at the speed of sound, stopped in front of him and snapped at him in protective anger, getting his attention instantly.

" What did you do to Tails?! How could you do such a thing?! How could you attack an innocent child just to get back at me?! You think that makes you tough? " Sonic yelled at him with his fists clenched, as the hopelessly confused robot looked surprised with his black computer screen eyes looking taller rather than being slanted to express his shock and bewilderment.

" What are you talking about?! Why would I hurt a defenseless kid? What would I have to gain from engaging in a duel where I was guaranteed a victory? Why would I _waste my time_ seeking out a battle with someone other than you? And why would I even _want_ to hurt him in the first place? He hasn't done anything to deserve it. It's not like he's Knuckles. What kind of monster do you think I am?! " Metal Sonic responded, surprised and worried by his anger and offended that he would even say that. His voice sounded rather similar to Sonic's, but with a slightly deeper pitch.

Infuriated at the idea that he had the gall to lie to him, Sonic shouted, " You ARE a monster! The world would be a safer place if it didn't have heartless killing machines like you! Why do you have to be such a pest?! It's no wonder that everyone hates you! You're a heartless evil fake! It's no wonder that I've always _hated_ you! You're _hopeless!_ "

To Sonic's shock and confusion, Metal Sonic gasped, his eyes shrinking and dimming to a reddish-brown with the computer screens containing them slanting in a saddened expression. For almost three seconds, he was speechless, and it was during that silence that it began to dawn on Sonic that he had never spoken to him with such hatred before. He hadn't realized how loud he was yelling, or the sheer impact of what he was saying.

Trying to save face while he was overwhelmed with emotion, Metal Sonic forced himself to look angry as he exclaimed, " What?! Y-You hate… How could you say that to me?! You, y-you _bastard!_ You think I _care_ what you think of me?! Fine! Hate me, then! I'm used to being hated! I don't _need_ your approval! Why would I care what you think of me?! Just because I was _based_ on you? Just because you're the original, you think you know better than anyone else whether or not I have any worth?! And you think I think you're right?! You think _so_ little of me when you don't even _know_ me, and you, you… "

With his vision starting to get obscured by a white mist in a simulation of tears, he continued, forcing his voice to sound angry by raising it at various points, " Why don't you just _kill me_ already if you hate me so much?! You don't care about me at all, I'm just a machine to you! Just a fake! You probably think all of _this_ is just fake! As if we can't both be real?! Why does it have to be that way?! Why, why does it… Damn it, Sonic!... " Shaking by that point, he turned around briefly to instinctively wipe away the nonexistent tears, knowing full well that it was accomplishing nothing, and doing it anyways because it was exactly what Sonic would do. After two seconds where Sonic considered saying something back, Metal instantly turned back around to face him and shouted,

" Damn it all! I can't _believe_ this happened _again,_ you putting me _through_ this again! You're just like _him!_ You're just like my father! You're just like everyone else! But I don't care! I don't care that you hate me! 'Cause why _should_ I be able to care when I don't _feel?!_ 'Cause I'm just a _soulless_ machine without _feelings,_ right?! You _shouldn't_ have to _think_ about how I'd _feel_ because I _don't!_ Everyone thinks you're _SO damn noble_ when you couldn't care less if I just threw myself off a cliff! Y-You couldn't care less, you don't care… Just leave me alone! " With his voice cracking at the final sentence, he turned around and flew into the distance in a blue blur, leaving at the speed of sound the second Sonic saw how devastated he looked.

Sonic stared into the sky at a loss for words, stunned at Metal Sonic's reaction to what he had said without thinking. The robot's eyes had dimmed and started reflecting what he saw like rippling pools of water, almost as if they were filled with tears, and his voice cracked and wavered as he yelled at him, sounding hurt and heartbroken more than angry at an enemy. He didn't fail to notice how Metal Sonic had called Eggman his father, implying that he was so upset with him that he ended up letting his true feelings slip out. If he truly was the heartless killing machine that everyone thought he was, he wouldn't have reacted the way he did, hating being thought of as soulless and without feeling and having such a passionate emotional response to being told that he was hated. He was no ordinary robot.

He had depths. Just thinking about how he reacted and the sheer impact of the fact that he reacted at all, caused Sonic to go from annoyed with him to feeling terrible about what he said, with his angry expression gradually giving way to sadness and sympathy. By the time he started wanting to apologize to him, he was long gone, and he had no idea where Metal Sonic flew off to. He sighed, and shook his head as he turned around and started walking to Tails' workshop, trudging through the winter snow as he hoped he would see him again.

Four days later, when Sonic ran up to Eggman in his Eggmobile, he was surprised and concerned to find out what Eggman was so worked up about. Metal Sonic had gone missing. The infamous doctor was ordering armies of robots to search the world for him, trying to hide his worrying about a robot's well-being by acting angry and determined. The instant he spotted Sonic, he furiously accused him of being responsible for Metal Sonic's disappearance. " You! This is all _your_ fault! What did you say to him?! " Eggman questioned with a protective anger in his tone. With that one sentence, Eggman revealed that he knew full well how much Sonic's opinion meant to Metal Sonic.

After a few seconds of being speechless from guilt, Sonic said nervously, " I-I didn't know that would happen! I didn't even think he would CARE! I thought he _knew_ that I didn't like him very much! How was I supposed to know?! " Eggman slammed his fist onto his Eggmobile as he shouted, " You idiot! Do you realize what you've done?! You can't talk to him that way! His fragile ego can't handle it! If he ever thought he couldn't prove himself to you and change your mind, if he ever thought for even a second that you called him worthless, he would cease having the motivation to keep functioning! No wonder he went missing with no sign of him on the news! He could've self-terminated because of you! " Sonic felt horrible from hearing that, with the last sentence hitting him hard. Getting even more worried and panicked, he said in his defense, " I-I never called him worthless! I just said that the world would be better off without him! I-I… "

It wasn't until he said those words that he realized how much they could've hurt. With Eggman glaring at him in disapproval with only Sonic's apparent remorse keeping him from going on a rant at him, Sonic said unhappily, " What have I done?! I've gotta find him! It can't be too late! He's gotta be somewhere! I've gotta find him and apologize! " Eggman crossed his arms, not wanting to forgive him as he slowly began to, and told him, " The only way he could be permanently destroyed is if he sank into the lava; it's the only thing on the planet hot enough to damage his CPU to the point where Metal Sonic as we know him would cease to be. But his self-preservation instinct is so powerful that he wouldn't be able to self-terminate very easily. "

" That means he didn't jump into a volcano, right? There's still hope! " Sonic said with a nervous smile. " Not exactly. I noticed before he went missing that he was getting increasingly more lethargic. It reminded me of the time he refused to sleep for three nights in a row. Long story short, I gave him a very stern scolding that convinced him to never do that again. If he's stayed up that long again, it may have been for a reason. He may have intentionally caused himself to be so low on energy that if he boosted in a circle while flying just above some lava, he would run out of energy and fall into it without being able to save himself from destruction. He may have a self-preservation instinct programmed into him, but he's more than intelligent enough to find ways to work around it. Why do you think he's so rebellious? No matter what I program into him, he'll always find ways to do what he wants anyways, " Eggman explained. Annoyed, Sonic asked, " So if he's so rebellious, why do you care so much about finding him? " wondering if Metal Sonic was right about his own father only seeing him as a machine.

" I'm not about to give up on my most powerful robot! Sure, he may be grumpy and disrespectful and we don't get along, but that doesn't change the fact that he's my greatest creation! He's succeeded in nearly all of the missions he's been assigned! And I've given him more missions than every single one of my robots put together! Even if he is moody and rebellious and I let him get away with too much, he's earned my leniency from his competence! He's my most intelligent, useful, and unstoppable robot! Every single day, I'm proud of him! You can say I've gone soft for having a favorite robot all you want. As disrespectful as he is, he's done more than enough to make up for it. So he's my most rebellious robot, so what?! That's not enough reason for me to abandon him. When I had to leave him behind on Stardust Speedway, I returned for him as soon as I could! I found him once and I'll find him again! "

With that, Eggman left Sonic alone, flying away in his Eggmobile as Sonic sighed sadly in response, feeling incredibly guilty and deciding to dedicate himself to searching for Metal Sonic until he found him. He promised himself that if he ever saw him again, he would apologize to him. While Knuckles didn't understand why he felt so guilty about causing a dangerous machine to shut himself down, Tails and Amy did, and supported him in his decision to search for him.

A month later, Sonic was running at the speed of sound through a snow-covered mountain, wearing winter clothes to keep himself warm, when he noticed an unusually large pile of snow in front of him. " Did… did he get caught in an avalanche?... Well, it wouldn't hurt to make sure, " Sonic said unhappily. He ran towards the pile of snow in a blue blur and started circling around it, creating a tornado that carried away most of the snow and caused friction that melted what was left. When he finally stopped, having gotten rid of the pile of snow, he gasped at what he saw. Lying face down in the snow in front of him, was Metal Sonic.

His infamous robot twin was lying motionless in the snow, with various snowflakes scattered around and almost completely obscuring his ice cold metal exterior, staying on it rather than melting as a grim indicator of how cold he had become. He was almost unrecognizable, such a strong contrast from the way he had previously looked that the amount of damage the cold had done to him was clear. He was frozen solid. " No… " Sonic said quietly, with a sinking feeling as he shuddered at the thought that there was no hope for him.

He rushed to his side, calling out, " Metal Sonic? Is that you?! Metal! Wake up! Wake up! " to no avail. There was no response. Thankful that he had gloves on to keep his hands warm, Sonic hesitantly pushed the robot's side with both hands to roll him over on his back with a groan of exertion, and sighed, slumping over from exhaustion and kneeling to the snow with his hands on his snow-covered jet engine to keep himself from falling forwards. " It's me, Sonic! Sonic the Hedgehog! Come on, Metal, can't you hear me? Can't you recognize my voice? Wake up! " Sonic said in futility, hoping that his words would seep into the robot's subconscious and wake him up from the sheer impact of hearing his mortal enemy's voice. But it was to no avail; once again, there was a deathly silence.

The front side of the robot was almost completely covered in snow, being one large clump of snow that almost completely obscured it from view, and Sonic tried not to panic as he started wiping the snow away with his gloved hands as quickly as he could and taking it out of his jet engine clump by clump. Hoping that the snow didn't cause irreversible damage by having frozen water seep into his jet engine, Sonic frantically wiped the snow away, starting with the head and working his way down. As he wiped away the snow from the robot's face, he saw nothing but blackness in his computer screen eyes, which were slanted downwards in a sad expression that reminded him immediately of how devastated he made him. " Answer me… " Sonic whispered, and there was no answer. He was unresponsive, completely motionless, and if Sonic didn't refuse to lose all hope, he would've seen him as lifeless. Just a lifeless, soulless machine, a machine needing repairs rather than a person with a heart, the very thing he had accused him of being.

Having finished wiping all of the snow away, Sonic found himself gently stroking the top of his head, more to relax himself than the deactivated robot lying in front of him. " I can't carry you home, but I still won't leave you here. I need to make it up to you, in any way I can. I had _no_ _idea_ how awful I made you feel. I'm _truly sorry_ that I hurt you. " Sonic said with a sad expression, feeling increasingly guilty the more he looked at him. Seeing such a powerful robot lying motionless, broken and deactivated in the snow because of him, was heartbreaking, and he couldn't stand it. Sonic pulled his communicator out of the left pocket in his coat, called up Tails, and said, " Tails? I found him. He shut himself down! He's not responding to _anything!_ I'm in Ice Mountain Zone, on the south side. Bring the plane! "

With that, he turned off the communicator after hearing Tails' response and spoke to the deactivated robot once again, saying quietly, " It'll be alright, don't worry too much. I'm staying right here with you. I won't leave your side, don't worry… " while stroking his head again. He convinced himself that it served a practical purpose, sending the warmth of his gloves to the robot's freezing cold head, and while it was ultimately pointless because the two of them were outside in a blizzard anyways, it was good enough of an excuse for Sonic to keep doing it, making himself feel less guilty about what he had driven him to. He had a feeling that Metal Sonic had caused that avalanche on purpose.

He only had to wait ten minutes for Tails to show up in the plane, but it felt like an eternity, with him shivering in the cold wind waiting by Metal Sonic's side and having nothing to do but stew in his own guilt. When Tails finally showed up and landed the plane right next to him, he worked together with Sonic to lift the limp and deactivated robot into the back seat of the Tornado-1. They sat him in the back seat and strapped him in with the horizontal and vertical seatbelts, noticing as they were strapping him in how he was slumping over from unconsciousness, requiring Sonic to have his hands against his forehead and chest keeping him from falling forwards as Tails put on the seatbelts to secure him. After his seatbelts were put on, the robot was finally being kept in a proper sitting position. His head was hanging low with his back against the seat behind him and his hands resting on top of each other on his chest. He appeared to be merely sleeping, when the reality was far worse.

With that, Tails returned to the front seat and flew the plane back home with Sonic standing on the wing, looking almost just as nervous as Sonic was. Tails wasn't entirely comfortable with being anywhere near such a dangerous and infamous robot, especially not to fix him. But at the same time, he understood Sonic's guilt over causing the robot to attempt suicide. And being told about the robot's devastated reaction to being hated by Sonic went a long way towards changing his opinion of him. So while he didn't entirely trust Metal Sonic, he was still willing to do whatever he could to bring him back to working order, both out of compassion for Sonic, and for him as well.

Another ten minutes passed, and the plane finally landed in the Mystic Ruins. Sonic jumped off the wing of the plane in a hurry, ran into his house at the speed of sound and proceeded to have all of the necessary doors opened in a blue blur, rushing back to the plane in a second's time to help lift the limp robot out of the plane and onto the stretcher he brought him from the workshop. After managing to lift him into his arms long enough to lie him down on the stretcher, Sonic strapped him into it and pushed the stretcher into his house down the hall and all the way to his bedroom, with Tails closing the doors behind him.

Reaching his bed at last, Sonic pulled over the covers, unstrapped his robot double from the stretcher, and lifted him into his arms and laid him down in his bed. As he took off his winter clothes in a hurry and put his regular gloves back on, Tails ran to his workshop in a yellow blur, came back a second later with a long metallic invention resembling a metal detector and turned it on, and waved it over Metal Sonic, with its colors changing to reflect what was beneath his metal casing. Using the portable X-Ray device that he had invented, Tails was able to discover the kind of condition he was in. " How is he? " Sonic asked with a worried voice. " He's frozen solid… " Tails said quietly in despair. " Literally. His temperature regulator failed and his oil's been frozen. I don't know how long it'll take to thaw him out, " he explained sadly.

" Oh, man, this isn't good… We need to warm him up, pronto! " Sonic replied nervously. Looking over at his cold snow-covered winter clothes, Sonic sighed and shook his head, deciding to find some other way to warm him up. Giving him winter clothes straight out of a blizzard would only make him colder. He ran out of the room in a blue blur and quickly returned carrying a long bathrobe and gloves in a pile in his hands. He said comfortingly, " Here's some warm clothes, fresh out of the dryer, " trying to speak to the deactivated robot once again. " Tails, a little help? " he asked, and Tails helped him lift the robot appropriately so that he was able to put the warm robe and gloves on him. Tails lifted him up by the back of his jet engine to cover it with the bathrobe and warm it, lifted his arms one at a time so that Sonic could put them through the sleeves, and then covered his chest over with the bathrobe. After that, he lifted his yellow and black hands by his limp wrists one at a time, with Sonic carefully putting white gloves onto each of them.

As Sonic made it so that even his fingers were covered with warm fabric, Tails was surprised to realize that they weren't sharp claws resembling metal spikes, but were instead shaped exactly like Sonic's fingers, causing him to wonder if his infamous claws were retractable, morphing from fingers to claws and back when he needed to. He supposed he should've known it was that way, since even having particularly long fingernails, let alone having claws, would make it incredibly difficult to do basic mundane tasks, with even pressing a button being rendered an impossibility. It only made sense that Eggman would design his robot to be as productive as possible.

Sonic smiled, feeling a sense of accomplishment, and chuckled at the odd sight of a robot dressed in clothes, only to quickly return to looking concerned when he remembered just how critical his condition truly was that he had to resort to that. He even had to take it to himself to dress him because he wasn't able to do it himself.

Feeling sorry for him, Tails said, " I'll check his temperature, " and quickly retrieved a white thick high-tech thermometer from the washroom cupboard. He carefully placed it in the robot's left metallic ear, and after a distinctive beeping sound was heard, he took the thermometer out, and his face fell even further.

" He's at a sub-zero temperature… " Tails said sadly. " What?! Let me see! " Sonic replied, knowing that having an internal temperature that low would kill any normal human being, and looked at the thermometer to see the answer for himself. When he did, he had a sinking feeling again. The robot was at -55 degrees Celsius, well below the freezing point for oil.

As Sonic started covering him over with the blankets, Tails said nervously, " His oil won't all thaw out at once, because it's made of different chemicals with different melting points. I don't know if it's a good idea for me to restart his heart until after his oil is completely thawed out. I might have to wait until it's thawed to the point where the only frozen parts of it are the parts heavy enough to be sitting there rather than being carried through his bloodstream – I mean, _oil_ stream – because having solid crystals of oil being sent through his body might end up damaging his internal components when they smack into them. "

" Wait, wait, wait, hold on. His heart? His bloodstream?! Isn't he a robot?! " Sonic said in confusion. " The X-Ray device told me a lot, Sonic. He's actually surprisingly similar to _you_ in physical structure. I mean, aside from the jet engine in his chest instead of a stomach, and the oil filter to the left of it instead of kidneys and a liver. But he's essentially the same. M-My point is, the best way I can think of to warm him up is to send electricity through his wires to warm them up. The heat will spread from the interior to the exterior of the wires and end up warming the frozen oil surrounding them. But since he's off right now, sending energy into him would do nothing, because it would just remain in his energy container trapped there by the off switch. I'd need to turn him back on; open his metal casing up a little and manually flip the switch in him to do so. And I'll have to make sure the heart, I mean, the oil pump, won't start pumping from the energy and damage him. His oil is frozen, so you don't have to worry about it making too much of a mess, we can keep him in bed if you want. I'm just warning you, Sonic, this is gonna be tricky. It's not gonna be good enough just giving him warm clothes and blankets. I need to check his battery life and get something to automatically monitor his vitals and recharge him with a Chaos Drive plugged into him. He'll be okay, but it's gonna take a while. "

Sonic sighed again, and sat down beside the robot lying in his bed who was without vital signs at the moment. He wondered if from a robot's perspective, he was dead, or if it didn't truly count because he wasn't damaged beyond repair. Tails said nervously, " I'll be right back. " He started running out of the room, returning with something from his workshop and running back out again until he was finished ten seconds later, moving at slightly below the speed of sound by spinning his tails vertically like a propeller.

Knowing he had no choice, Sonic reluctantly pulled down the blankets covering him and pulled away the bathrobe covering his chest, looking increasingly worried. " Okay, how much energy is left in him? " Tails said quietly, and plugged his laptop into the hole just above and within his jet engine connecting directly to his energy source. Tails pulled a chair up to the laptop he set on the desk next to the bed, sat down on it, and clicked various menus in his laptop until he activated an app he made for it that would detect in percentages how much energy something had left in it.

" He's at 0%, " Tails said in concern, taking that as a sign that he had been under the snow a long enough time for all of his energy to run out. He clicked an option in the app that said, " Keep monitoring without being plugged in, " and unplugged it from Metal Sonic, knowing that it would leave behind a microchip that would wirelessly transmit his energy level to his laptop.

Tails proceeded to use a cutting tool with special cutting paste to slice through the robot's metal casing just above his jet engine, altered the oil pump so that it wouldn't start pumping but would still have electricity going through it warming it, and flipped a switch inside his energy container to turn him back on, with Sonic looking away the whole time in discomfort. Even though he was technically a machine, he still didn't like seeing Tails open him up and work on his internal components like that, especially since what little he saw caused him to see that his oil truly was frozen solid, to the point where Tails had to chip it away to get to the internal components he wanted to work on. As Tails used a tool with nanoglue paste on it to return the metal to his casing as normal, he said, " I'll use the frozen oil that I cut out as a sample so that I can put it in my chemical analyzer and be able to replicate it. Then I'll put it in a vial and return it to him when it's fully thawed out. " Sonic asked, " Wait, why would you want to replicate it? "

Hoping he wouldn't get judged negatively for his childlike curiosity, he said, " Because I wanna know if I can! And besides, he might need more oil again at _some_ point. You never know when it could come in handy for me to know how he works, " smiling for the first time since the robot was brought home. With that, he plugged the Chaos Drive into the hole above his jet engine, sending electricity through the robot's wires and warming them. Sonic put the robe back over his chest and covered him over with the blankets immediately.

Tails returned to his laptop and changed it to showing percentages with decimals, and soon saw that 0% had changed to 0. 00025% on the screen. " At the rate he's charging… I don't know. I can't send all of the energy into him at once, it'll overload the circuits! So you'll have to wait a while for him to reactivate. I don't know how much energy he needs to have to wake up because I don't know the password to access his programming… but in the condition he's in now, I don't think he'd wake up even _after_ reaching that energy level. He's frozen solid, Sonic. At the rate he's gaining energy, it'll take forever for him to wake up! When I used my X-Ray device on him, I was able to find out that he gains energy by taking oxygen into the combustion chamber in his heart and refueling the nanobots in his lungs when the oil is pumped afterwards. If I oxygenate him, he'll start regaining energy the way he usually does in sleep mode. I'll have to build a machine that will do the breathing for him. I'll be back, Sonic. " Tails said unhappily. With that, he left the room, and headed for his workshop while Sonic stayed with him out of guilt, deciding to read through some of the books he hadn't read to pass the time.

Thirty minutes later, Tails finally returned to the room, placed an oxygen mask with a tube inside of it over the robot's nose and mouth, plugged the lung machine into the left hole above his jet engine, covered him over with the blankets again and flipped a switch to turn it on. With that, it got to work, periodically sending oxygen into his mouth to inflate his mechanical lungs and deflating them by extracting the non-oxygen gases directly from them. Sonic sighed unhappily. Before, he was able to feel better about Metal Sonic's situation by thinking of him as just sleeping, but seeing his robot double with an oxygen mask with a machine breathing for him, only made him feel like he was in a coma.

Tails scanned him with an X-Ray device once again and said, " His oil is still frozen solid. It'll thaw out eventually. But he's warming up, Sonic! Let me show you! " He checked his temperature with the thermometer, and said with a sweet smile, " -48 degrees. See? He's getting warmer! Still at sub-zero temperatures, but, he's starting to thaw out! "

" So all you have to do is fill him with energy, thaw out all his oil, give him oxygen and get his heart pumping again, and then he'll be all better, right? " Sonic said with a hopeful smile. " I guess, but it'll take a while for him to wake up. And when he does… _then_ what will happen? " Tails replied sadly, as he altered the programming of his microchip to start monitoring the energy level of the robot's CPU and displaying it the way a hospital would brain activity. A long flat beeping sound was soon heard, with a horizontal line on the screen above the percentage number. Upon hearing what sounded like flatlining, Sonic's face fell. Despite having electricity going through his wires and being sent to fill every part of his body with energy, there was no brain activity in him to speak of. Sonic started to wonder if simply sending energy to his CPU wasn't enough, if he might never be able to be reactivated.

His worries were eased when he started to hear the long beeping sound stop and get replaced by a periodic short beeping sound with a three second delay between each repeat of it. The horizontal line now had a tiny increase in height in the right-center part of it that was shaped like an upside-down V, and the robot's eyes seemed to light up. They were U-shaped, and so dim that they were barely visible, being a flat reddish-brown color with no pupils representing that he had gone from deactivated to being in sleep mode. Sonic sighed in relief, and said happily, " Metal Sonic?... Hello? " He waved his hand in front of the robot's " closed " eyes, and looked concerned. Tails explained, " He's _really_ low on energy, Sonic. He's not gonna wake up for quite a while. I think he's programmed to go into sleep mode instead of waking up right away. It's an energy conservation thing. If he woke up right now, he'd be running on empty and immediately use it all up! Even if he could breathe on his own, it's better to just save him energy and have a machine do it for him. He has a lot of energy to regain before he can wake up again. I don't know how long he'll be asleep… "

Sonic said quietly, " You mean, he'll be in a coma… " Knowing exactly what his older brother was worried about, understanding him without words, Tails reassured him, " Only for a short period of time. He'll wake up before the end of the week, and you'll be able to apologize to him as soon as he does. " Sonic smiled. There was still sadness in his eyes as he looked over at the broken and weakened robot recovering in his bed, but now, he had hope.

Tails wasn't sure what would happen after Sonic apologized to him. Would Metal Sonic reject his apology and make him feel worse? Would he try to kill him as soon as he was capable of it, try to cause damage to his house and make it harder to help him? Or would the sheer impact of the fact that Sonic saved his life and apologized to him, cause him to accept his apology and not hurt him just to repay him? He was clearly upset about the idea that Sonic didn't value his life, and being proven wrong about it could do a lot to comfort him. " Eggman's looking for him… What do we do? " Tails asked unhappily, deciding not to ruin Sonic's good mood by voicing his other concerns.

" Well, when he's capable of going back home, he'll go if he wants to. Right now, he's staying right here with us. I want to make it up to him. If we can help him, we're gonna do it, " Sonic said with a small smile, stroking the robot's head. Tails looked at him in confusion, and he said, " You're _really_ worried about him… "

Not wanting to worry him, Sonic said, " Huh? Oh, uh, I'm just trying to warm him up. He doesn't have anything to warm up his head, other than the energy you're sending into him. Hey, why don't you get one of my hats from the dryer for him? That could work. " Tails nodded, ran out of the room in a yellow blur and quickly brought the hat from the dryer to his bedroom. Sonic carefully put the hat on the robot in his bed, and chuckled lightheartedly, finding the sight of a fearsome robot wearing a winter hat like a regular person amusing. He knew that it was far from a lighthearted situation, but he would take any excuse to smile that he could get. " Why don't you watch TV for a while, kiddo? Take a break. I'll stay with him, " Sonic said, causing Tails to leave the room and return to his workshop with the oil samples he had gained.

Taking advantage of how Tails was no longer there, Sonic lifted up the blankets a little, lifted the robot's limp left hand by the wrist, moved his palm down to his and held his hand gently. He used his other hand to cover him over with the blankets again and stroke his head compassionately. Since he was wearing gloves, he didn't have to deal with how ice cold the robot's hand was, and warmed it in the process. The hand was limp, heavy and hard, but it was shaped in the same way as his own, complete with a concave palm and regular-shaped fingers that Sonic moved with his other hand to make him return the gesture. " It'll be okay, Metal, I promise. I'm here for you… " Sonic whispered comfortingly, easing his own guilt in the process.

As soon as Tails sent energy into him, Metal Sonic started to enter a dreaming state as he went into sleep mode. At first, he had too little energy to have dreams that contained any images or even sound. He only felt the presence of someone beside him, and felt confused as a result. The world around him was in silence, and he only saw complete darkness; his visual feed only gave him static right before he lost consciousness. His temperature, tactile, pain and pressure sensors weren't giving him any data, false or authentic. He didn't even have a sense of orientation to tell him whether he was standing or lying on his back.

He had too little energy to start processing his situation, being too weak to even think about it. He could only feel confused about somehow knowing that there was a living being beside him. He had no awareness of how much time had passed in between the last time he dreamed, and he was in a dreaming state, so it never even occurred to him to wonder whether or not he was dreaming. It didn't occur to him to try to access his knowledge about the past events of his life. His processing power was too weak. He couldn't remember the situation he was in before, or anything for that matter. He felt like he was in a black void, not seeing, hearing or feeling anything, and being too tired to think about his situation, only knowing confusion and the presence of a living, breathing being beside him. At times, he felt two, and wondered why that second person wasn't with him all the time.

Hours passed without him realizing it, and before he knew it, his audio feed finally started giving him information. He heard something. It was faint and unclear, but he recognized it immediately upon hearing it. It was Sonic's voice, speaking to him in a reassuring tone. He knew that he had never heard Sonic speak to him that way before. He wondered how the voice was familiar, and how he knew it was strange to hear him speak to him that way, and it finally sparked memories in him, causing him to remember with what little processing power he had who Sonic was. It made the fact that he heard him comforting him all the more meaningful. He was still in a black void, not feeling or seeing anything, and it didn't occur to him that he might only be dreaming, but with him being able to hear once again, he finally got the idea to try to reply to what he heard.

But when he tried to speak, he felt like he didn't have the energy. He had to force himself to say anything, having no motivation to do so, and soon came up with the idea of making his mouth movements very slow to trick himself into saying words despite his low motivation to do so. But even then, he couldn't speak. He couldn't send the air out of his lungs to speak in the first place. Trying to make at least some noise in response, he moaned sadly, having difficulty even doing that, and hoped that Sonic heard him. To his surprise, he did, and said quietly, " It's okay… " feeling a mixture of sympathy and relief at him at least making a sound. The robot was able to hear his response clearly, and smiled.

He lost all awareness after that, and it took another hour for him to start dreaming again. This time, while he still couldn't feel anything, he finally started seeing something. His visual feed gave him false information to give him something to focus on in his dreaming state, showing him the image of Sonic in Green Hill Zone waving to him. He couldn't feel anything, but he could hear and see. " Hey, metal me! Haven't seen you in a while! Was worried that old Egghead scrapped you! How about a race to celebrate? From the start of this place to the end! " Sonic said in a friendly way, and chuckled afterwards. Metal Sonic was confused at how he spoke to him like an old friend, and felt a mixture of appreciation and sadness, as well as suspicion that it was too good to be true or didn't mean what he hoped.

" Sure. I-I mean, I shall beat you in the race, Sonic the Hedgehog, " he said, accidentally speaking like Sonic again at first and trying to speak formally to save face afterwards. With that, he started racing with Sonic through Green Hill Zone, flying through it with his jet engine while Sonic ran and jumped at the speed of sound. Sonic was having fun, while Metal was completely fixated on winning and proving himself. They were about to tie at the end of the race, but Sonic managed to win just in time. " Yeah! That was fun! We should do this again sometime! " he said cheerfully.

It wasn't until he turned to face him that he realized how devastated he was. He was struggling not to cry. " Why did you win? I'm just… Why do I bother with _anything_ anymore?! I'm worthless, aren't I?! Just admit it! That's how you feel! " Metal Sonic said with forced anger in his tone, trying as hard as he could to not look weak.

To his surprise, Sonic seemed to feel sympathy for him, looking shocked and upset as he said to him, " Huh?! No it isn't! Y-You don't have to be better than me! You're awesome all on your own! You're _smart_ and got all sorts of _cool_ abilities, and… Hey, relax, I… " He looked hesitant before placing his hand on his shoulder and saying with a smile that went from forced to genuine, " It was a tie. We _both_ won! And hey, any time you wanna compete with me again, you know where I live. Out of everyone I've ever competed with, you're the only one who gives me a challenge. You're my favorite rival! And that means a lot coming from me. "

" I… But what if you're not home? " was all Metal Sonic could say, stunned at how kind Sonic was being. He wanted to believe him, and a part of him did, but he worried that it was too good to be true. His voice cracked and his vision started to become obscured by a white haze that he recognized as his body's simulation of tears. They weren't real tears, as the only liquid in him was oil. They only existed from his perspective, appearing in his vision to imitate Sonic. They were fake, just like him. With that thought process, he started to look even more devastated, intentionally not breathing to avoid sobbing in front of him and humiliating himself even further. His eyes dimmed and faded from red to a reddish-brown as they started reflecting Sonic like rippling water, a mere simulation to represent how saddened he was.

Unable to stand seeing him that way anymore, Sonic went closer to him and put his arms around him in a hug. He was surprised, but the most surprising thing of all was that he could feel it. By sheer coincidence, his tactile, temperature and pressure sensors all started working again the second Sonic comforted him in his warm embrace. Stunned and lost in thought, he absentmindedly returned the hug immediately, being just as gentle as Sonic was. Sonic said comfortingly, " Then you'll write a note for me and I'll read it when I get back. You worry too much, Metal Sonic. You've really gotta lighten up a bit… "

Metal Sonic said sadly, " I'm… I'm f-f-freezing… Why am I freezing? " and started shivering in Sonic's arms, relying solely on him for warmth. What confused him the most of all, was that Sonic didn't tell him to let go. He said compassionately, " I'll warm you up. Don't feel bad about yourself anymore, " and continued to hug him, stroking his head with his left hand to soothe him. At this point, he briefly wondered if he was only dreaming, being certain that Sonic would never do that for him, and only dismissed it because he was far too low on energy to wake up. " W-Why are you being so kind? " Metal asked sadly, almost feeling like he didn't deserve it.

" Why wouldn't I be? Of course I care about you. We're sort of like family, you know? You would've never existed if it weren't for me, and you were created from my DNA. So in a way, we're related. Even more than I am to Tails, " Sonic said.

" He deserves to be considered part of your family more than I do. We've never gotten along before. We don't even live together!... I… But you're right. We _are_ family. I've spent my entire life being compared to you, and trying to measure up to you… Is that how a brother feels? " Sonic replied, " Yeah... A younger brother, at least. But seriously, Metal, you don't have to be better than me. You're awesome all on your own, and that's good enough for me. You don't need to prove yourself to me, because I've always been impressed by you, ever since we first met! Don't worry about it. "

It didn't take long for him to go from stunned and confused at Sonic's kind gesture to smiling in comfort, relaxing his shoulders as he appreciated his kindness and warmth. " Sonic… I wish everyone was as nice as you… " he replied quietly with a smile.

Sonic reluctantly left his room for supper, with Tails making him a chili dog for the purpose of cheering him up, and when he returned to his room, Tails used the X-Ray device on Metal Sonic again to take a look at how his oil was thawing. He smiled hopefully and said, " I think I can restart his heart now. His oil's thawed out enough that it won't damage him by circulating through his body. " With that, he unplugged him and removed the microchip and oxygen mask, used his cutting tool to shut down the robot temporarily, returned his heart to normal, flipped the switch in his energy source to turn him on again, used nanoglue to return his metal casing to the way it was before, and reprogrammed his microchip to start relaying information about the robot's heart rate before putting it back in.

He placed the oxygen mask over his mouth and nose with the tube going into his lungs, and plugged him back into the lung machine and to the Chaos Drive, making it so that he was regaining energy once again. Tails changed the programming of his laptop's app so that it only outputted the sound of the heart being monitored, and when he was finished, his laptop was displaying three things; the percentage of energy Metal Sonic had, a line representing his heart beating with periodic beeping, and another line displaying his brain activity. Tails said with a smile, " Alright, I've finished making a setup that monitors his vitals automatically. I don't have to work on him any more. Now all we have to do is wait. He'll be all warmed up before we know it! "

When night rolled around, Sonic decided to share his bed with the deactivated robot lying in it, lying to Tails that he was going to spend it on the couch. As odd as it was that he was sharing the bed with him, he was so consumed with guilt that he didn't want to leave his side. " It's bad enough that you're in critical condition because of me. I don't want you to have to spend the entire night alone, " Sonic said, speaking to the unresponsive robot after getting under the blankets beside him. Thankful that the pillow was wide enough for two people, he rested his head in it, laid down beside him, and managed to get himself to sleep, wondering how long it would take for him to wake up.

After an indeterminate amount of time spent in a dreaming state, his final dream faded away and his vision faded into darkness. The rest of his sensors started to give him information that was completely different from what he had been given earlier. He was awake at last, but he was so tired and exhausted that he felt no motivation to turn on his optical sensors and find out where he was. It was as if his non-existent eyelids felt heavy, and he was so cold and weak that he just wanted to go back to sleep and return to being able to move around freely again, even if it was only in a dream. But he couldn't go back to sleep, no matter how little he thought or moved.

He started shivering, feeling freezing cold, despite the fact that he felt incredibly warm cloth and blankets around and over his body. Upon further analysis, he realized that he was wearing clothes; a bathrobe long enough to cover both his torso and his legs, and a winter hat on his head. He appreciated them, as strange as it felt to be wearing them. Why would he wear clothes? It sounded very undignified of such a powerful robot. He certainly wouldn't put them on himself, unless he really was that desperate to get warm. But that wasn't all he felt. There was a soft pillow beneath his head, and he was lying on the soft mattress of a bed with blankets over him. He appreciated that as well, and smiled a little in spite of how cold he was, but only for a few seconds.

Still shivering from the cold, he began to realize that there were two plugs in the holes leading to his lungs and energy source, and there was a mask over his mouth and nose with the tube in the inside of the mask leading down into his lungs. He came to the conclusion that it was an oxygen mask, as he realized that while he was inhaling and exhaling, he wasn't breathing on his own. A machine was doing it for him. Feeling uneasy, he started to try to breathe on his own, inhaling when oxygen was sent into him, and he soon heard an indistinct high-pitched voice comment on it and take the oxygen mask off him, allowing him to breathe on his own without filling the oxygen mask with what he'd exhale. He smiled peacefully, relieved at the small satisfaction of being allowed to breathe on his own, even if his breaths were more shallow.

He heard periodic beeping coming from to the left of him along with two male voices, one of which sounded familiar. After a while, the voices around him started to become gradually less indistinct. At some point, he could hear clearly what they were saying, but to his frustration, he wasn't able to understand it, his tired mind working too sluggishly to process speech properly. He wondered how much time had passed, but when he tried to check his internal clock, he felt too exhausted to do it, and when he tried to at least activate a counter in his field of vision, he again felt too weak, despite the fact that all he was trying to do was visualize icons appearing and being clicked. He began to wonder just how low on energy he was if he was too weak to even imagine something. Had he missed out on three days of sleep again? The last time he stayed up that long, he ended up passed out for about 29 hours as his body forced him to catch up on his sleep, plugged into a recharger on the workbench of Eggman's lab, and he had to listen to an hour's worth of Eggman scolding him out of anger born of worry for resorting to that just to avoid having nightmares. Had he started having terrible enough nightmares that he stopped sleeping again?

And that was when he remembered. Sonic, the person he was based on, the one whose opinion of him mattered more than anyone else, told him that he hated him, and implied that he thought of him as worthless. He was humiliated at remembering having an emotional outburst in front of him and being driven into a nervous breakdown, feeling so insecure and without hope that he ended up planning his own destruction just to end it all. He stayed up for three days in a row without sleeping and used the sound of his most powerful attack, the Plasma Pulse Attack, to cause an avalanche, knowing that he would pass out from exhaustion immediately afterwards being too weakened to follow his programmed survival instinct. He wanted to be buried in an avalanche, run out of energy and stay frozen solid under the snow for the rest of his existence, ridding the world of him and stopping his suffering. He wanted to stay in the snow, and he woke up in a bed.

Someone found him, and felt enough compassion for him to not only do whatever was necessary to help him recover, but went to the extra length of putting warm clothes on him and placing him in a bed. He knew it wasn't a hospital bed, despite the periodic beeping of a heart monitor and a monitor of his brain activity beside him, because a robot would never be taken to the hospital. Did Eggman bring him to his own bed? But how did anyone find him under an avalanche at all? Did the snow that buried him melt? Did it blow away in the wind? Did someone _cause_ the wind? The only person he knew who could do anything like that, was Sonic; the very same person who caused him to try to self-terminate in the first place. He couldn't have found him by accident. He would've had to intentionally create a tornado around the pile of snow he was buried under in the hopes of finding him beneath it. Did Sonic try to find him and save his life? Did he feel guilty about what he said? The longer he kept his eyes closed, the more Sonic worried that he would never wake up.

Realizing he was only worrying Sonic and had to wake up sooner or later, he reluctantly forced his optical sensors to turn back on, his black computer screen eyes slowly having the reddish-brown light shaped like a U become shaped like a circle and have pupils appear in them, his eyes switching from closed to open multiple times before settling on an activated state. The black pupils inside of his red eyes looked unusually large from his optical sensors adapting to not taking in any light for so long, and the robot did his equivalent of squinting and blinking, sensitive to the light.

With his eyes open at last, he confirmed his suspicion. He was lying in Sonic's bed, with Sonic and Tails at his bedside looking concerned, with Tails having him plugged into a computer that monitored his vitals. His vision started out being blurry and seeing double, and soon became more distinct as he slowly looked over at Sonic, moaning and shivering. Sonic was relieved that he was finally awake, but at the same time, he looked sad.

" You had been buried under an avalanche for over a month. I brought you here, and me and Tails have been helping you warm up. You've been unconscious for days. And it's all my fault. I owe you an apology. I… I'm sorry I called you fake. I didn't think about how it would make you feel when I said it. You're a robot based on me, but that doesn't make you fake; you're still just as real as I am. I was wrong to say that to you, just for the sake of a taunt. If I had known that I was making you miserable, I would have been more considerate. I can't even _begin_ to tell you how terrible I felt that you went missing because of me. I wanted to make it up to you, at least a little bit. I wanted to show you that I care about you. That's why I decided to help you myself. "

" Why… Why didn't you leave me behind? " Metal said sadly. He left him behind on the Death Egg Mk II, him and Eggman left him behind on Stardust Speedway, and the former caused him to feel abandoned. He couldn't understand why Sonic didn't do it again, when he had every reason to when he thought he was just a heartless killing machine.

" I didn't leave you behind because I didn't wanna lose you. Out of everyone who has competed with me, you're my favorite. You're the only one who actually gives me a challenge! Out of all my rivals, you're the one who gives me the most fun. Besides, you're my robot counterpart. No one who shares my name and data should be left to die like that! Of course I saved you… "

The robot tried to lift his hand and move for the first time in a month, but it felt weighed down, and weakness overtook him. " Why do I feel so heavy? I can barely move… " he said in exhaustion, feeling like there were solid objects in his oil weighing his body down. " Your oil's mostly frozen right now. It hasn't completely thawed out yet. You were at -55 degrees when I found you, and at 0%. You've warmed up a lot since then, but you still have hypothermia, and your energy percentage is really low for a robot who's been recharging for 29 hours. I don't know how long it'll take for you to recover completely, but you're free to go home when you do. I know I can't completely make it up to you, but I still wanna try. Besides, Eggman will probably punish you for going missing when you get back, so you might as well stay here and put it off for a while. He was _really_ worried about you, and you'll have to explain to him what happened so that he doesn't jump to the wrong conclusions when you come back without any damage. "

Sonic was right. Eggman was going to give him a severe scolding as soon as he returned home. He wasn't sure how long the lecture would last. He could barely handle being yelled at by his own creator, mainly because he wasn't at all used to it, but he at least appreciated the fact that it showed how much he cared. Tails told him nervously, " Y-You should probably not try to move around too much. T-The parts of your oil that are frozen solid are sitting there at the bottom of your oilstream, a-and if you move around too much, you might send them smacking into things and causing damage. J-Just relax for a while, " finally getting the courage to speak to him. Sonic commented, " You'll be okay. I _promise,_ nothing like this will _ever_ happen again. "

" I… Thank you. I-I, I deeply appreciate this. The way you, _assisted_ me, the apology… the fact that I exist… You have my gratitude for it all… I… I think I'm ready to forgive you now… " Metal Sonic finally said, knowing that he would feel even worse about Sonic going through all that trouble for him if he never thanked him for it. Sonic and Tails smiled, finding it heartwarming that he actually thanked them for their efforts. After that, Metal Sonic returned to sleep, seeing no reason to continue being awake until he had fully recovered. He knew that he'd have to explain to Eggman what happened to him so that he wouldn't accuse him of having gone rogue all those weeks, and he wasn't looking forward to it. He hoped that Eggman would understand why he did what he did and show him compassion rather than only yelling at him for a while and making him feel hated by his own creator. He was dreading the scolding so much that he almost wished he could just stay with Sonic and Tails just to avoid it, despite the fact that he knew he'd see Eggman again eventually even if he did.


End file.
